Chapter I THE NATURE OF HEAVEN

1) What is the nature of God?

To begin with, it is imperative to recognize
that the true living God spoken of in A Course in Miracles is a
non-dualistic Being, in Whom absolutely no opposites reside. The Holy One
is the Creator of all life, a Being of pure Love and the Source and First
Cause of non-physical reality and totality, the perfect One Who is all-encompassing,
outside of Whom is literally nothing, for He is Everything. Our Source's
nature cannot be described or really understood at all, as Jesus comments
in the workbook:

Oneness is simply the idea
God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything
but Him. We say "God is," and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge
words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of
mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not
itself. It has united with its Source. And like its Source Itself, it merely
is.

We cannot speak nor write nor even think
of this at all (W-pI.169.5:1-6: 1).

Jesus states that the nature of God and
His Oneness cannot be written about because it is a pure non-dualistic
reality, and the spoken and written word which expresses the thinking of
a split mind is dualistic. Therefore, any attempt to describe non-dualism
must fail, and inevitably fall short of expressing the reality of oneness
that lies beyond all expression. Again, it simply is. At best, therefore,
all we can do is describe God's nature, always keeping in mind that
our words are but "symbols of symbols," and "are thus twice removed from
reality" (M-21.1:9-10).

Reproduced with the kind permission of Gloria and
Kenneth
Wapnick and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles®